In my efforts to do more and more and more dissection of my music, I started 2 new playlists on iTunes last night based on megan's playlists.

Bodies

Cities/States/Countries

In the process, I corrected genre on several songs. (David Bowie doing Peter and the Wolf with the Philadelphia Orchestra is NOT Rock) My largest obsession remains ranking songs though, I am woefully behind in the task though, with less than a 1/4 of the songs ranked.

I can't even think of ranking. I get really good at categorizing for a while, but then put it aside and essentially have to start all over again. My work playlists at least ensure that I listen to a variety of stuff.

Msbelle, I have most of my lists (which are usually about 50-60 songs) in Word format if you want some ideas:

Summer Wages: Songs about summer
High School Musical: Songs from 1981-1985
Stickshifts and Safetybelts: Songs about cars and driving
Groundhog Day: Originals and their covers
March Madness: Songs that reference insanity
April Showers: Songs about rain or with rain in the title
May Flowers: Songs with flowers in the title
Color Me Shocked: Songs with colors in the title
Eight Days a Week: Songs with days of the weeks in the title
No Lawyers or Guns: Songs with money in the title
Rikki Don't Lose That Number: Songs with numbers in the title
A Place for My Stuff: Songs with place names in the title
A Royal Pain in the A**: Songs with royal titles in the title
Body Language: Songs with body parts in the title

Hey, Megan! Thanks for including one of our songs in the latest!

Ranking started as a way to keep track of songs I didn't like when listening to new stuff out and about on the iPod. I rank those with a 1 and then delete all the ones when I re-synch. Then I wanted a favorites playlist that auto updates, so I started one that would pull all 4&5 stars and started ranking those songs while on random play with the iPod. The it seemed logical to do something with 2 & 3. 2s are what I call cusp songs. I have that as an auto playlist also and everyso often give it a listen and decide if things move up to a 3 or get cut. 3 is the baseline for keeping a song. Some things don't get ranked like the rest: holiday music, relaxation stuff - and there are lots that do not get pulled to the favorites playlist: jazz, classical, children's, holiday.

The iTunes five-star ranking system is why God gave us five fingers....

Let's see - 0 stars are stuff I keep for completionist sake, or holiday songs, recordings of violin class, etc. 1 star means I find it "interesting." 2 stars means I like the song. 3 stars if I get an immediate, happy recognition when the song starts playing. 4 and 5 stars are my faves.

Then I get all overly-analytical about it, and think things like, "To maximize the usefulness of the ratings system, songs should be roughly evenly-distributed amongst the five possibilities (0-stars is a special case), and I only have about 700 5-star songs out of 14,000. I should take some of the best of the 4-star songs and make them 5-star."

msbelle's and tommy's posts made my head hurt.

I actually rate things on iTunes almost identically with Tommy, although I probably tend to overrate.

I actually rate things on iTunes almost identically with Tommy, although I probably tend to overrate.

Sort of like Netflix users.

Hey, Megan! Thanks for including one of our songs in the latest!

Soon you'll be right up there with Johnny Cash.

I figure, why do I own a song if I don't like it, so I don't mind that most of my ratings are a three. But then, I rate most things in the middle no matter what, so. (Like conference evaluations or whatever -- I'll give something I really liked 4 of 5.)

the reason I started the low rating to eliminate was I was adding lots and lots of music I had never listened to.